December 10:

Pairing: Sybil/Tom

Rating: K+ for a reference to a pervert Larry Grey being a creep towards Sybil. #because I detest that guy so much #you have no idea #damn perv who got poor Tom intoxicated for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Tom, like so many other people in the world, loved the Christmas season. He looked forward to snow on the ground, despite the chore of shoveling his car out following shortly after. Christmas reminded him of childhood in the suburbs of Dublin, inside his family's small home where, despite the troubles that life threw at, warmth and love was always found. Even now, when he was away from home and hadn't seen his family in a few months, he was still looking forward to simply the atmosphere of it all. Helping Sybil clean out her attic of old decorations was already the highlight of his December this year.

However, the one problem that always snuck up on him and enjoyed watching his internal torment was this: what he was going get everyone for Christmas.

As a school-age boy, it had been simple. From seven in the morning to six in the evening, his mother, aunt, and older cousins slaved away in their kitchens, stirring batter and baking treats that the entire family would distribute to friends. That had been Tom's way of gift-giving in the past, but that was no longer an option. Unless someone came out straight and told him what they wanted, Tom was clueless.

What was going to make matters worse this year was the fact that, back in October, he had sworn to get Sybil something genuinely special. And with a limited budget and not even a vague idea, he felt absolutely absurd.

Sybil was very special to Tom, even if her parents didn't see that very well. He had known her long before last Christmas, but in the past year something had flourished, and Tom felt that he needed to show her that she meant so much to him by giving her something that, whenever she looked at it, she'd think of him.

And that was the part that was so goddamn difficult.

While he and Sybil tirelessly worked in the stone-cold attic of the Crawleys' manor house, he asked Sybil about her own Christmas past, hoping to get some idea of what she usually got as a present. He wanted his, when he decided what it was going to be, to be different than any other gift she had ever received. To his dismay, though, most of the gifts she had ever received, even to last year, sounded extravagant beyond measure and costing any middle-class man both arms and legs. If she were to get similar gifts this year, how was his going to stand out?

Just sorting through broken ornaments made Tom feel inadequate when it came to gift-giving. Even when he held a broken one in his hand, he could tell that any individual ornament sitting up in the attic was more expensive than any one gift he had ever given his family. He wasn't good at homemade gifts, couldn't cook anything fancy, and asking his mother to send him a tin of biscuits to give to Sybil just did not seem enough for him.

Right now, though, he was considering buying her a kukri knife to help her combat her fear of being killed by a demon in the form of a small Santa statue. He had laughed aloud when Sybil had described what had happened that fateful night years and years ago, although it wasn't very fair of him. As a child, he had been frightened of all the ghost stories his mother had told him to prevent him from wandering around the house late at night. And if he had been the one to come face to face with a disturbing Santa statue after falling down a flight of stairs, he reckoned he'd also be somewhat traumatized. Though it was not very Sybil-like for her to seek protection behind someone else, even Tom. Sybil was a capable young woman who just happened to write for a feminist blog column behind her parents' backs, and to be frightened half to death by the dog scrambling around the attic was a side to her Tom had never before seen.

It must had been one terrifying Santa.

Sybil was in the middle of scouring the internet for the gifts on the list she had compiled when a sudden thought struck her like lightning: what was she going to get Tom for Christmas?

Getting gifts for her family was easy. She knew exactly what each person liked and did not like. She could get away with giving anyone almost anything, in fact. But Tom was entirely different: he required a whole different thought process. He was someone whom, in the past, Sybil had grown to regard as practically a boyfriend. And since she had never had a boyfriend, she was left wondering how on earth she was going to get him something good enough.

Well, that Larry Grey might have considered her to be his girlfriend at one point, but Sybil had smacked him across the face when he touched the inside of her thigh on the first 'date.' That little endeavor had ended quicker than Lady Jane Grey's rule over England.

As she pondered any possibly gift choices, Sybil tried to assess what Tom might want for Christmas. He never said outright what he wanted, besides who should be running for this and that position in the political world. Judging from what he had said about Christmas in Dublin, he wasn't accustomed to anything expensive being given to him, so Sybil decided that her gift to him could not be too expensive. She did not want him to think that she was flaunting her family's wealth (which even she hated to admit she possessed) or unintentionally make him uncomfortable. Sybil would never be able to forgive herself if the gift she gave to Tom did not make him kiss her on the lips in absolute joy.

But where would she start?

Her criteria for a present for Tom were fairly standard: it had to be special and unique; it could not be too expensive or outlandish; and above all else, it had to communicate to him just how much she loved him. In words it seemed simple enough, but did such a gift even exist at this point in space and time? If she had the opportunity to wander up and down Fifth Avenue like Mary was probably doing, she might be able to come up with a few ideas, but searching online stores didn't add fuel to her brainstorm.

She was going throttle herself until she came up with a plausible theory to the great question: what would her gift to Tom be?